Re: Game boots up, displays white screen, only has sound and invisible UI

Yeah, the DxDiag won't have a new crash. As I said, the game just white-screens; it doesn't draw anything. It runs perfectly fine otherwise, and I'd have the exact same experience if I was blind. The game seems feature-complete and bug-free sans the lack of graphical elements.

I mentioned in my first post how my Windows 10 isn't activated anymore. One other reason I can't be arsed to get my key back out is because I don't know my Windows password anymore and, in my infinite wisdom, decided I'd write do a load of fake info because I couldn't be arsed dealing with an extra email a week. So I don't know how to change it, either. The reason this poses a problem is because I am disallowed from booting up Safe Mode due to Safe Mode not allowing me to login with my pin, which I remember. So this DDU cannot be used, I'm afraid.

That said, I do believe the effect this would have had would be negligible, as the game has been running fine and displaying properly at other points in history. One such point in history being literally last week on the exact same GPU Driver.

You got any other ideas? Push come to shove I'll have to reformat my boot drive, reinstall windows, and then see if that works out for me (which should also accomplish the driver rebuilding as per your suggestion).

@VaanDiablo  I did read what you said about your Windows key, but I wasn't aware you'd lost your password.  (I bought a key a couple of days after installing Windows, and I had a working password in the meantime.)  At any rate, I'll ask someone who knows more than I do whether safe mode is absolutely necessary, or whether you can manually accomplish the same thing in a different way.

Your dxdiag clearly lists a number of errors that are often (not always, but often) linked to a corrupt GPU driver.  And your game is not displaying properly.  So the GPU driver is still the most likely suspect.  In the meantime though, you can try some other basic troubleshooting steps.

First up is disconnecting the second screen.  If that doesn't help, disconnect all peripherals, aside from your mouse and keyboard, of course.

Here's how to run a couple of checks on Windows files:

• Hit Windows key-X
• Choose either “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Command prompt (Administrator),” whichever option is offered
• Inside the window that appears, copy and paste “DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth” without quotes into the window, and enter
• The system will start validating soon. If it throws an error, please list it here
• After it reaches 100%, hit Windows key-X again
• Again, choose “PowerShell (Administrator)” or “Command prompt (Administrator)”
• Inside the window, copy and paste “sfc /scannow” without quotes into the window, and enter
• Post the message you receive here

After all this, please check the Reliability Monitor for any Sims 4 or Origin entries from today or yesterday.  There might not be any, but if there are, I'd like to see them.  Hit Windows key-R and enter "perfmon /rel" without quotes, then look through the listings from the last two days.  For any Origin or TS4 entries, click "View technical details," then copy the information into a text file, and attach it to a post.

Oh, no. Sorry. I didn't mean to assume you knew about my forgotten password, apologies if I came off that way.

I forgot to say, but the second screen being offed didn't work. I unplugged both of them in sequence to see if either would work. I also turned off the PC to restart it with a single monitor and tested it but to no avail. Worth a shot, though.

New instructions;

DISM came back clean, nothing to report.

SFC, however, found corrupt files and successfully repaired them:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at
windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For offline
repairs, details are included in the log file provided by the /OFFLOGFILE flag.

Note on the file attached:

Each block of break is separated by forward slashes, the different breaks that happened at the exact same time are separated by hyphens. Each TS4.exe crash is paired by at least one system error.

@VaanDiablo  No worries, you're fine.  I was just saying I didn't know you couldn't find your password, whatever the status of your Windows key.

The errors are more of the same LiveKernelEvent in the dxdiag, no surprise.  I'm still going to ask for a second opinion, and I'll get back to you about that later.  (It might take a little while, so don't worry if you don't hear from me right away.)

One thing I want to point out is that you shouldn't have to run the Legacy Edition of TS4; your computer is perfectly capable of running the standard edition, which I'm sure you know.  You can switch to the standard 64-bit edition in Origin: right-click on the Sims 4 icon in your game library, select Game Properties, then Advanced Launch Options, and choose 64-bit from the dropdown menu.  If you don't see the option, right-click on the TS4 icon and select Repair, then look again.

Yeah, I swap between the two versions and test them one after the other just in case. Thanks for your help again, even if you don't end up finding a second opinion for me. 🙂

@VaanDiablo 

@puzzlezaddict  asked me to look at your DxDiag.

What other games do you run on this machine and do they run fine?

Do you have the possibility to test with another GPU? (From a friend or relative?)

Are you computer savvy enough to test your GPU in the other PCIe slot of your Motherboard?

Did you tried with both monitors? (Shut down > Disconnect > Start)

Did you interchanged the Monitor cables?

Your Bios is the oldest available for this Motherboard. I would suggest an update in a case like this.

• What other games do you run on this machine and do they run fine?

CoD: MW, R6: Siege, Outer Worlds, DotA 2, CS:GO, Rimworld, Planet Zoo.

All are stable and run 200(±~35)+ FPS. My GPU is OC'd slightly and I've since deactivated my OC settings because of instability during the summer heat and forgot to turn them back on. My CPU is OC'd for an extra 100MHz Boost Clock.

• Do you have the possibility to test with another GPU? (From a friend or relative?)

I do, but that strikes me as slightly more effort than it's worth considering my friends are all in excess of 20 miles away, and my missus is an Alienware Laptop user. So not really an option I'd take easily.

• Are you computer savvy enough to test your GPU in the other PCIe slot of your Motherboard?

I am, but I'll do you one better. This is the exact same problem I faced just over a week ago now, and four days ago I upgraded my mobo from a GA-AX370 K7 to an Aorus X570 Elite. So instead of just changing PCIe, I've changed the entire board.

• Did you tried with both monitors? (Shut down > Disconnect > Start)

I only tried Shut Down > DC > Start with my main monitor, as it's a normal aspect ratio and resolution. I did try both of them unplugged normally, however.

• Did you interchanged the Monitor cables?

I can't, my 144hz is VGA, my widescreen is HDMI 2.0. I don't have a converter either, I'm afraid.

• Your Bios is the oldest available for this Motherboard. I would suggest an update in a case like this.

The board bios being old makes sense, considering. I'll give that a crack. Same thing as PCIe, though. Updating the entire board makes it less likely to be that, right?

@VaanDiablo 

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VaanDiablo wrote:

All are stable and run 200(±~35)+ FPS. My GPU is OC'd slightly and I've since deactivated my OC settings because of instability during the summer heat and forgot to turn them back on. My CPU is OC'd for an extra 100MHz Boost Clock.

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I would ask you to end all overclocking for the time we troubleshot.

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VaanDiablo wrote:

I do, but that strikes me as slightly more effort than it's worth considering my friends are all in excess of 20 miles away, and my missus is an Alienware Laptop user. So not really an option I'd take easily.

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Considering your description, it really is. Still there are several LiveKernelEvent 141 Hardware error in your DxDiag. (VIDEO_ENGINE_TIMEOUT_DETECTED)
So that might be something to consider if everything else fails.
Not being able to use DDU in such a case is a real problem as well.

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VaanDiablo wrote:

I only tried Shut Down > DC > Start with my main monitor, as it's a normal aspect ratio and resolution. I did try both of them unplugged normally, however.

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Please try with the other monitor as well. (As only monitor connected, and The Sims resolution set to 1080P.)

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@VaanDiablo wrote:

I can't, my 144hz is VGA, my widescreen is HDMI 2.0. I don't have a converter either, I'm afraid.

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You surely mean DVI? That's what your DxDiag says.

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@VaanDiablo wrote:

The board bios being old makes sense, considering. I'll give that a crack. Same thing as PCIe, though. Updating the entire board makes it less likely to be that, right?

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Yes it does makes it less likely to be that, but lets make sure.

Furthermore, I would normally ask you to preform a clean boot, (Not a save boot) and to disable Afterburner and Rivatuner or any other overclocking tool you might have, and test the Game in clean boot mode.

But I can't say if your Pin would work on a non active Windows in clean boot state, and that provides us with another problem here.

May I suggest to recover your Password? There are useful tools at the nirsoft site.  

• I would ask you to end all overclocking for the time we troubleshot.

Went and looked, turns out I'd never applied my CPU OC. There was never an OC of any type applied to my system. Which raises other questions for me, but none for the EA forums.

• The LiveKernelEvent 141 Hardware error in myDxDiag

Did more digging. Most likely cause of this I could find is that my luck continues to be poor (it's a running joke across my entire life that anything revolving around luck is never going to go my way) and I lost on the silicon lottery for my 1080ti. Makes sense, because it's OC capabilities were poor when I was faffing with them last year some time.

• Please try with the other monitor as well. (As only monitor connected, and The Sims resolution set to 1080P.)

No luck.

• You surely mean DVI? That's what your DxDiag says.

Point still stands. I've got no connector.

• Yes it does makes it less likely to be that, but lets make sure.

So I was reticent to do this due to prior experience bricking a mobo due to a bad bios update. Thankfully they replaced it for free as it was their own new bios, but still.

In the meantime I did a completely fresh install of Sims 4 and Origin again. This time I removed the entire EA folder from my Documents, rather than just the settings, Mods, and Saves. It worked. I thought a fully fresh install was the saviour and was ready to come on here and tell you guys that life could go on but I needed to pop out. I came back, turned on my PC and tried to boot Sims 4 and it was white screening again.

This time I just removed the EA folder from my Documents. Lo' and behold, Sims 4 boots up. I move my Saves back and it still boots. I load a game, play a bit, make a new save, change the music settings down, and then turn off my PC to test. On a fresh boot the game will no longer load up properly. It appears the game, on closing, is putting something into my EA folder along with my saves that makes the game break. I use no mods, nothing in my game is different to the average users'. I now have a repeatable way of breaking and fixing my game. It's a ball ache, but at least I can play. Now I'm just curious as to what the F is happening with my game that is causing it to commit settings-based suicide. Any of you have an idea?

Thanks to everyone that aided in the process of debugging my game and offering help!

@VaanDiablo  Holger is the hardware expert, not me, so I defer to him in that category.  But as far as game files go, are you saying that messing with options.ini is the way to break the game?  Can you play as long as you change no game settings at all?  If so, once you get to a white screen, delete options.ini and nothing else, and relaunch.

@VaanDiablo  That's so strange.  I mean, it makes perfect sense that the files might not work properly if they were compressed and the game couldn't read them.  But I'd think the problem would be more widespread.

In any event, I'm glad to hear you figured it out, and thanks so much for sharing that info.  I'll be sure to keep it in mind for other people with the same symptoms.

@VaanDiablo 

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@VaanDiablo wrote:

I had the sudden idea to stop windows from doing it's auto compression on those files once they'd been created and had started giving me whitescreen. This solved it. I can now turn my PC off and on and get back into the game without whitescreening it each time. I have no single idea why nor how, and I was under the impression it's only slight compression to aid with space saving and that any file in use is uncompressed, so nothing should be happening. However, that doesn't change the fact that it's no longer breaking once it's deactivated.

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This behavior is not really automatic, at least not most of the time.

Auto compression is not set by default in Windows 10, it is however enable if a feature update of Windows finds a hard drive that is low on space during the update. 

You should make sure that you have at least 20GB of space on your system drive before you run a Windows feature update.

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@VaanDiablo wrote:
Did more digging. Most likely cause of this I could find is that my luck continues to be poor (it's a running joke across my entire life that anything revolving around luck is never going to go my way) and I lost on the silicon lottery for my 1080ti. Makes sense, because it's OC capabilities were poor when I was faffing with them last year some time.

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The LiveKernelEvent 141 error can have many reasons, a real hardware defect of the GPU is one of them.
But it can also (among other things) be memory or driver related. So a clean installation of the driver with DDU and a Memory check would be a good idea.